


Thirty Minutes Ago

by ObsessedtwibrarianOTB



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gay Male Character, M/M, Male Slash, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6391843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsessedtwibrarianOTB/pseuds/ObsessedtwibrarianOTB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two strangers strike up a friendly conversation in an airport, and it isn't until thirty minutes later that one of them realizes the other was not who they seemed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty Minutes Ago

“Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds.” -Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

Carol settled carefully into the hard plastic chair, her creaking arthritic bones singing a mildly painful chorus. But she was oblivious to the pain, so used to it that she ignored it most of the time. She placed her carry-on bag and purse onto the empty chair next to hers and took a look around. Most of the people sitting within her eyeshot were absorbed in their own worlds, chatting or texting on their phones, reading a book, or slumped over trying to grab some sleep in between connecting flights. Some were frowning and obviously in a sour mood. She guessed they were stranded because of the gigantic storm brewing in the Midwest. Several flights heading east, including her own, had been delayed or cancelled. Instead of being disgruntled, as most persons in that situation would be, Carol was content to sit by herself and engage in her favorite pastime: people watching.

Who could be bored with so many interesting people to gaze at? The young lady sitting two rows over from Carol—the one showing way too much cleavage to be proper—was chatting away on her phone. Whoever was on the other end of that conversation wasn’t getting a word in edgewise. _Rude._ Carol watched her for a few moments, took in the short skirt and the outlandishly high heels, and drew her conclusion. She’d known quite a few women like this one in her seventy-three years of living: vain and selfish females, advertising everything on their bodies for sale to the highest bidder. Carol sniffed with righteous indignation—secure in the knowledge that she was correct in her appraisal—and decided not to waste any more of her time on that one.

She turned her focus to a man sitting about ten feet to her right. He was covered in tattoos. She shook her head, wondering who in their right mind would mark up their skin in such a disrespectful way. Did they not realize how unattractive they looked?? God created man in His own image and as far as Carol was concerned, no permanent embellishments were needed to improve upon perfection. She idly wondered if all those horrible tattoos would still be there when God resurrected their bodies from the dust of the grave. Surely He wouldn’t allow that. Would she be forced to share Heaven with these marked up people for the rest of eternity?? She certainly hoped not, and she most certainly hoped the man hadn’t recently been released from prison.

Carol’s attention was suddenly diverted by a clean shaven young man, who looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties, settling into a chair right across from her. He was dressed neatly, (and rather modestly considering that most of his generation seemed obsessed with showing their underwear to the world), in jeans that actually fit and a dark blue polo shirt. He dropped his carry-on into the empty seat beside him and twisted around until he was comfortable. Like all young people these days, his phone was stuck to the side of his face and he was talking loud enough for Carol to easily hear his conversation.

“I know,” he said, sounding and looking sad. “I’m sorry about it too, but there’s no way I could have predicted this. I’m stuck here overnight. There’s nothing I can do, hon. I’m sorry.”

He glanced Carol’s way, his dark eyes fleeting across hers with disinterest. He sighed and raked a hand through his short, brown hair, mussing it, oblivious to the fact that it was now sticking out in several places.

“Call the florist and the caterer in the morning and see if they’ll just move everything forward a day.” He fell silent as he listened to whoever was on the other end. “No, the preacher won’t be a problem. Just worry about the flowers and the food. Everything else we can change pretty easily.”

Carol took note of every word. Apparently he was getting married and the flight delay had interfered with their plans.

“We’ve waited this long. One more day is nothing. Just one more day and we’ll be official.”

He smiled at something he heard through the phone. A light blush stole up his cheeks. Carol couldn’t help but smile with him. _What a nice young man._

“I love you too,” he said, his voice a little softer, but still easily heard. “How’s Puddles?” He listened for a few moments, then suddenly squeezed his eyes shut and moaned. “Oh no! Not on my new sneakers?!” After another few moments of silence, he sighed. “Hug her for me, and tell her I still love her.” He pulled the phone away from his face, looked at the screen for a few seconds, and then spoke into it again. “Damn, I’ve gotta go. My phone is running on fumes. I left my charger in my suitcase. I didn’t think I’d need it. Text me later, okay?”

The blush returned, brighter than ever. Carol smiled again as she imagined what was being said into his ear, remembering her own courtship and marriage and the sweet, naughty things she and her beloved had whispered to each other so long ago.

“I’m in an airport,” he said softly, grinning. “There’s people around. Would you stop?” He laughed quietly. “You know I do. Goodnight. Love you.”

Carol watched him with grandmotherly fondness as he turned off his phone, scratched his head like he didn’t know what to do next, then all-of-a-sudden decided to dig around in his carry-on for something. A book, perhaps? She doubted it, as this generation seemed to have discarded the eloquently written word like yesterday’s garbage in favor of abbreviated text messages full of misspellings.

Whatever he’d been searching for, he’d failed to find it in his bag. He sighed, raked his fingers through his hair, mussing it even more, and finally decided to “zone out”, as her teenage granddaughter called it. Carol pondered whether to interrupt his daydreams to engage him in conversation, or just leave him alone. One never knew how a stranger would react to a little friendliness. People these days could be so rude.

She was a little shocked to realize she suddenly felt very protective of this young man sitting across from her. The feeling was inexplicable, especially since he was a total stranger. She had no idea where it had come from, unless it was because he’d reminded her of her own past and the sweet memory of being young and in love. He looked to be a decent sort and it wasn’t his fault he’d gotten stranded in an airport when he should have been home snuggled up with his beautiful fiance on the eve of their wedding. Carol finally concluded that maybe a little friendly conversation would help brighten his mood.

“Congratulations,” Carol said.

He looked up, his tired eyes focusing on hers for the first time, like he’d just now realized she was there. He frowned, but not out of rudeness, rather he seemed mildly curious, and not at all offended.

“I’m sorry,” Carol said quickly. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. You’re getting married?”

He scooted his slouching, slender body back in the chair, sitting up straighter, smoothing his shirt, and paying attention. Carol appreciated his manners. His mother had raised him properly.

He laughed softly. “Sorry. I tend to forget about everything around me when I’m on the phone, then I end up talking way too loud. But yeah, we were supposed to get married tomorrow afternoon.” He sighed sadly. “My flight was delayed, so we’re going to have to push it forward a day.”

Carol smiled. “But like you said, one more day won’t make a difference. Not for two people who love each other.”

He nodded in agreement, leaned forward and stuck out his hand. “I’m Chris.”

Carol was, once again, highly impressed with his manners. Such a rarity these days. She smiled brightly, leaned forward and accepted his strong, firm handshake. “And I’m Carol. It’s so very nice to meet you, Chris. So, if I may be nosy…” Carol chuckled softly, dropping his hand and checking his expression to see if he minded her prying. “…how did you come to be stranded in an airport the night before your wedding? Shouldn’t you be home nervously pacing the floor and wringing your hands?”

He sighed. “No time to pace the floors, I’m afraid. I’m a freelance photographer. I have to go where the work is, and this time it was California. I couldn’t pass this one up, and everything would have worked out fine if this storm hadn’t veered off in a different direction.”

“A photographer. My, that sounds like an interesting job, especially with all the traveling,“ Carol observed, raising her eyebrows in appreciation. “I’m on my way to Chicago to spend Christmas with my grandchildren,” she continued, beaming with pride at just the thought of the brood of tiny, smiling faces that would be waiting for her when she landed. “This is the youngest one’s first Christmas. Little ones are a blessing from God, you know. I hope you and your fiancé plan to have a family…”

His smile faded a little. Carol immediately wished she could stuff her well-intentioned comment back in her mouth.

“We can’t have children of our own, but we’re going to try to adopt. There are way too many abandoned kids out there.” He smiled crookedly. “We can only hope that one or two of them will want us, maybe three or four, if we’re really lucky.”

Carol's respect for young Chris instantly doubled. "It takes a man with a heart of an angel to love children who aren't biologically his." She shook her head sadly. "I hear so many horrible stories these days of step-parents who abuse their step-children, and even biological parents who treat their own children like animals. I don't know what the world's coming to. If we had more men like you, the world would be a much better place."

Carol's heart melted when his face turned pink with embarrassment.

"Thanks. That's nice of you to say, considering you just met me a few minutes ago." He chuckled softly. "I could be a serial killer for all you know."

Carol laughed out loud at his absurd attempt to downplay her compliment. "I've lived a long time, Chris, and I'm an expert at people watching. I have a kind of sixth sense about these things. I can pick a good person out of a crowd like nobody's business. Just give me thirty minutes to talk to them and I'll know whether I was right or not. One thing I already know is that your fiance is blessed to have found you."

He smiled and shook his head. "No, _I'm_ the one who's blessed."

Carol had the strongest urge to gather this precious young man up into her arms and just hug him to death. These days, kids seemed to be so disconnected from one another even though they claimed to be the most "technologically connected" generation in history. Long, lingering love letters had been replaced by abrupt text messages. They fought their relationship battles on the computer instead of facing each other like adults and working out their problems together. But meeting this young man, who was obviously head-over-heels in love and eager to start this new phase in his life, gave her hope that humanity hadn't gone _completely_ mad.

"Do you want to hear a funny story?" Carol asked.

Chris grinned and relaxed back in his chair, shooting his long legs out in the aisle and crossing them at the ankles. "Sure. I'm game."

"I'm a collector of stories, as well as a people watcher, and I find it very interesting to hear how lovers met. For instance, my sweet Jimmy—God rest his soul, he's been gone for thirteen years now—but my precious husband and I met while cleaning the floor together..." Carol hesitated for effect. "...with our behinds."

Chris snickered. "Your behinds??"

Carol smiled fondly at the memory of their meeting nearly six decades ago. "Yes, our behinds. We were at a roller skating rink. He was showing off and I was pretending I didn't notice him showing off. Well, our feet got all crossed up because neither one of us was paying attention to anything but each other. We went down...hard. I had a sore behind for days after that. I called him a preening peacock and he called me a five-legged lummox. Then we laughed and became inseparable from that day forward until he passed."

"Awww, that was sweet." He chuckled and straightened up in his chair. "Want to hear ours? It's a little ordinary, though."

Carol nodded eagerly. She could hardly wait to hear it and add yet another love story to her collection.

"We met in a supermarket...at the cantaloupe display." He sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. "It was soooo romantic."

She laughed at his sarcasm and waited for the rest.

"I had no idea how to tell if a cantaloupe was ripe," he continued. "Clueless."

Then a really sweet smile lit up his face. So much love in that smile.

"I learned that day that you're supposed to thump a cantaloupe, and if it sounds hollow then it's ripe. Then you smell it, and if it smells green, don't buy it." He laughed softly. "I had no idea you could even smell green before that."

His dark eyes grew distant, looking back into the past, and his voice softened. "I also learned that day that I love blue eyes."

Carol was touched and felt the sting of tears. He may have thought his story ordinary, but to her it was anything but. It was simple and beautiful.

They stopped talking for a short while, each lost in their thoughts of the past. She was sure he was thinking of his fiance and their impending marriage. Carol envied him. She would give anything to be young again and relive the intensity of falling in love for the first time, that joyous feeling when another person consumes your every thought, your every waking moment. It's a blessing that only comes once in a lifetime, _if_ you're lucky. Carol shifted her weight to silence the lingering strains of arthritis singing their way through her hip bones.

"So, who is Puddles?" she asked as she settled into a new position.

He jerked back to the present and met her eyes. "She's our spoiled rotten little baby: a white Shih Tzu with light brown spots." He grinned mischievously and his eyes sparkled with it. "It's not hard to guess why we named her Puddles. She dribbles all over the place. I just found out she peed in my new Jordan's." He shook his head. "She can't help it though, so I can't stay mad at her for very long. She's too loveable."

Carol laughed and pointed an arthritic finger in his direction. "Gotcha! Now I know you're not a serial killer, because serial killers torture and kill animals. That's a known fact. Therefore, my official conclusion is that you're a nice, responsible, loving young man who is going to have a long and happy life with the woman he loves, with his children and his puppies surrounding him and loving him back. I give you and your lovely wife-to-be my blessing, but more importantly Chris, know that you have God's blessing as well."

The blush she'd expected to steal up his face at being so lavishly complimented never materialized. Instead, Chris stared at her very intently, his expression unreadable. Had she said something wrong?

Suddenly a gracious smile overtook his face and the strange moment passed. "Thank you," he said. "I have a feeling we're going to need all the blessings we can get."

Carol nodded in understanding. "You can never have enough well-wishes and support, believe me. Even if you love each each other more than life itself, marriage is hard work. Raising children is even harder. But I think you'll do fine. You're a man of good character. I can tell that."

He thanked her again for her kind words.

"Do you have a picture of your fiance?" Carol asked hopefully. She was so curious to see the face of the woman who had so thoroughly stolen this young man's heart.

That strange unreadable expression erased his smile once again. Carol was puzzled.

Finally, he cleared his throat and boldly met her gaze. "Sure. On my phone. If it isn't completely dead."

He rummaged in his carry-on and retrieved his phone, turning it on and touching the screen in a rapid succession of clicks. Cell phones totally mystified Carol, but this generation seemed to be unable to exist without them. Their entire lives were contained inside that small rectangle.

"Ah, here's one of Puddles." He scooted forward and leaned across the tiled aisle, the phone poised at the end of his slender arm.

Carol smiled. Puddles was a small and cuddly bundle of white and light brown fur. It was easy to see how she'd managed to wrap a soft-hearted man like Chris around her little paw.

"She's adorable!" Carol exclaimed. "But I'll bet your fiance is even _more_ lovelier than Puddles."

He smiled mischievously, like he'd done something wrong, but his crimes had yet to be discovered by his mother—a very sneaky smile Carol was all to familiar with, having raised two boys of her own.

"I think so," he said, grinning crookedly, his eyes dancing. He touched the screen of his phone some more until he found what he was looking for. "Here we go. Our trip to the beach last year."

He leaned forward and held the phone at arm's length again. Carol peered at the small screen, then shifted her gaze back to his. His eyes were dark, his stare penetrating, that crooked, smug smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Is this your idea of a sick joke??"

He laughed softly and leaned back in his chair. "No. You asked to see my fiance and I showed him to you." He shrugged and put his phone back in his carry-on. "His name's Kevin and we've been together for over six years."

Carol was livid, and only her good-upbringing and respect for propriety kept her from giving Chris a piece of her mind right there in the middle of that airport.

"You're a despicable man!" she snapped quietly, careful to keep her voice down, but still conveying her deep sense of betrayal to this smug person sitting across from her. "You deliberately made me look like a fool. I do _not_ appreciate that."

He shook his head. "I didn't deliberately do anything. You assumed without knowing the facts. You know what they say about people who make assumptions..."

Carol straightened her spine and ignored the pain as her arthritic vertebrae screamed in outrage.

"Homosexuality is a grievous sin. It's an abomination. It's unnatural and you'll never see the kingdom of Heaven if you choose to live this way. I take back my blessing. What church would marry you? What adoption agency would even _think_ of putting innocent children into a household like yours??" She grabbed her carry-on and purse, preparing to leave, to get as far away from this unpleasant man as she could. "I thank God in my prayers every day that I live in a state that refuses to make perversion legal."

He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together. His eyes blazed with the same fiery passion that Carol knew shone in hers. "I live in Maryland, and I'm thankful to that same God that the people in _my_ state voted on November 6, 2012 to finally join the 21st century and give me and Kevin, and hundreds of other couples like us, the right to marry whomever we love, instead of who _you_ want us to love."

Carol scooted forward in her chair, struggling to rise despite her stiffness. "I have never been so wrong about a person in my entire life. You fooled me, Chris. I'll give you that much. Now if you'll excuse me..."

She slowly rose, her joints audibly popping. Chris raised his head and stared up at her. His dark eyes had lost some of their heat.

"Carol, have you ever heard of Robert Green Ingersoll?"

His question seemed random, but despite her anger, her curiosity was piqued. "No, I haven't."

"He was an abolitionist and a supporter of women's suffrage in the 1800's. He gave fiery speeches about equal rights for all men and women. He was respected by some, ridiculed by most, but something he said back then rings true even today: 'Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.'

"Thirty minutes ago, you thought I was a nice man, that I was going to be a good husband and father. I think you actually liked me...thirty minutes ago. I'm still that same man, Carol. I didn't change. The only person who changed in those thirty minutes was _you."_

Carol watched in shock and anger as he stood, calmly grabbed his carry-on bag, turned his back on her and walked away.

_And he seemed like such a nice young man..._

 

**** THE END ****

(Chris is the one lying down. Kevin is smiling mischievously at the camera. And of course, that's Puddles up in the corner.)

 

 


End file.
